Well who saw that coming?

The Rookie

No braggings in here please, but did anyone see that coming?

Well I had predicted that in some areas the UKIP numbers would drop when voters maybe thought they would rather have an X than a Y MP (insert Tory and Labour as appropriate), that seems to be rather what the results are showing, UKIP support down about 5% with Labour getting about !% of it and the Tories about 3% and that seems to have swung it from a neck and neck to much more decisive.

With Only Berwickshire still to declare, the 3 main pan EK parties are level pegging with just 1 seat each in Scotland, SNP have the rest, that is pretty much as predicted.

Sinn Fein losing a seat in Northern Ireland is wasn't foreseen!

ugo.santalucia

Really pleased UKIP are irrelevant, they will slowly fade away, like similar parties did fade away in the rest of mainland Europe (indipendentism and xenophobia are by no means a British thing).

Less pleased Cameron is still in power, but it was inevitable... Miliband is not a credible leader and people did not believe him... big mistake was made 5 years ago when he was elected in place of his brother, who was a credible politician... he might come back, hopefully!

First.Aspect

I didn't think UKIP would do very well, because their "support" is generally fairly uninformed and also less likely to vote.

Similarly, the SNP vote is a loud, active minority who get up in the morning wearing yellow socks and blame "them" for "everything" and like to increase spending everywhere because that will make things good again like they were in.... um.... during the industrial revolution maybe.

But I have to say that the hammering that Millibendytoy has had is something of a surprise. Its Neil Kinnock all over again isn't it? Another nice enough but unelectable leader-by-committee.

I thought LDs would get about 25 seats, and be back in coalition, with a seat right at the back of the class. So yeah, I'm suprised and a bit sad, because coalition government stops any one party doing too much damage. At least its a small majority.

First.Aspect

ugo.santalucia wrote:

... he might come back, hopefully!

Not a chance, sorry. I predict labour will again don their blinkers and stumble forward with the current leader.

elbowloh

I fear we are now on course to leave the EU. The Tories will have to follow through on their pledge to hold a referendum (especially with the wingnut further-right within the party) and the electorate will vote to leave. The majority of the UK are currently for an exit.

It is I guess their democratic right, but it will be a vote led by ignorance and scaremongering.

ugo.santalucia

In a referendum most of tories will want to stay... it's the same people who go on holiday abroad on a regular basis, plan to retire to France and all that stuff... it's not in their interest...

I am no longer worried about that... British people voted very sensibly, meaning it wasn't a landslide for UKIP and they did not vote for the weak man...
I hate tories, but Cameron is the only credible leader, sadly... the others are a bunch of muppets, with the exception of SNP's lady who's got balls (unlike both Ed) and in fact got a landslide!

veronese68

elbowloh wrote:

It is I guess their democratic right, but it will be a vote led by ignorance and scaremongering.

Unfortunately I think you are completely right there.

Regarding this election I think the writing was on the wall for the Lib Dem's as soon as they got into bed with the Tories after the last election.

rick_chasey

Absolutely gutted.

anthdci

Rick Chasey wrote:

Absolutely gutted.

this, back to the 80's we go.

The Rookie

Interesting stat' with only a few more to declare, SNP with less than 1.5M votes got 56 seats, UKIP with 3.75 currently have only one.

SNP may have lots of seats, but their share of the Scottish vote isn't that big, Berwickshire nearly went Tory (SNP won by 328 seats out of circa 45000 votes cast) which would have been amusing had they had more seats in Scotland than Labour after all that Labour have been saying about Scotland.

Saving grace is that the SNP will not be wielding an amount of power out of all proportion to anything that could be considered democratic.

surrey_commuter

The Rookie wrote:

Interesting stat' with only a few more to declare, SNP with less than 1.5M votes got 56 seats, UKIP with 3.75 currently have only one.

and the 1 million people who voted green will be represented by 1 MP

SNP may have lots of seats, but their share of the Scottish vote isn't that big,

This is harsh analysis as they got nearly 50% of the vote.

You have to hand it to the Tories - they concentrated their efforts in the key seats and were very successful.

jamesco

ugo.santalucia wrote:

In a referendum most of tories will want to stay... it's the same people who go on holiday abroad on a regular basis, plan to retire to France and all that stuff... it's not in their interest...

The tories got 36.7% of the vote; they may win a majority of the seats but they don't make up the majority of votes. In a referendum every vote counts, unlike FPTP.

ugo.santalucia wrote:

I am no longer worried about that... British people voted very sensibly, meaning it wasn't a landslide for UKIP and they did not vote for the weak man...
I hate tories, but Cameron is the only credible leader, sadly... the others are a bunch of muppets, with the exception of SNP's lady who's got balls (unlike both Ed) and in fact got a landslide!

Why do you say that? Cameron has chosen a policy of austerity which has wrecked the UKs chance of an economic recovery. That is a failure of leadership. What is the strike against Miliband? That he was photographed looking awkward eating a sandwich?

anthdci

Surrey Commuter wrote:

You have to hand it to the Tories - they concentrated their efforts in the key seats and were very successful.

They also had an election campaign budget that was 35 million higher than labour.

rick_chasey

Safe to say very few people saw a tory majority.

Few more saw the lib dem collapse, but general consensus was anything below 25 would be terrible, so below 10 is horrendous.

What can we expect? A tory party with a slim enough majority that the anti-Europeans will have a bigger say than usual, and a vote on the Brexit.

Otherwise it'll be largely the same but more right - so fewer tax breaks at the bottom and more at the top end.

anthdci

Rick Chasey wrote:

Otherwise it'll be largely the same but more right - so fewer tax breaks at the bottom and more at the top end.

Pretty much, born to wealth and this is a great result. Have to work for all your living and your screwed.

Public sector spending will dry up even more, charity central funding and grants, which is already on its bare bones, will fall more and will push skilled people into call centre jobs and zero hour contracts. This is going to be a scary 5 years, probably with public and NHS strikes of the scale of the miners strikes, history repeating itself.

surrey_commuter

anthdci wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

Otherwise it'll be largely the same but more right - so fewer tax breaks at the bottom and more at the top end.

Pretty much, born to wealth and this is a great result. Have to work for all your living and your screwed.

Public sector spending will dry up even more, charity central funding and grants, which is already on its bare bones, will fall more and will push skilled people into call centre jobs and zero hour contracts. This is going to be a scary 5 years, probably with public and NHS strikes of the scale of the miners strikes, history repeating itself.

Having gone through this process a number of times I can assure you that none of the above will happen....

il_principe

jamesco wrote:

Cameron has chosen a policy of austerity which has wrecked the UKs chance of an economic recovery. That is a failure of leadership. What is the strike against Miliband? That he was photographed looking awkward eating a sandwich?

Erm We are undergoing an economic recovery, perhaps not as quickly as we'd like but the economy is on the up. Certainly most of the employees at our small business were hoping Balls & co did not get in (and the bike trade is notoriously badly paid!).

Strikes against Miliband:

1. He's not his Brother
2. He worked in the treasury team under Brown and never won the Financial Crisis argument
3. He has no Charisma (shouldn't be relevant but I'm afraid it is in 2015 Britain)
4: He's as privileged as the Tories - Primrose Hill, Oxford, Harvard, LSE, career politician (again this shouldn't really matter but it does). He's no more in touch with 'hard working families' than Dave & George are.

anthdci

Surrey Commuter wrote:

Having gone through this process a number of times I can assure you that none of the above will happen....

Well put it this way, the charity I used to work for had 15 people there when I was there 5 years ago and had been expanding, doing more great work in the community and jobs. We had been providing subsidized services to other charities, (finance, IT support etc), whilst doing community development and regeneration projects, paid for through various grants.

Roll forward to today, there are 3 members of staff and look to be closing up in the next few months because there is no funding for those projects, other charities that were supported have either gone or scaled back and can't afford services.

5 years of more of the same will lead there being nothing left.

UndercoverElephant

The Rookie wrote:

Interesting stat' with only a few more to declare, SNP with less than 1.5M votes got 56 seats, UKIP with 3.75 currently have only one.

SNP may have lots of seats, but their share of the Scottish vote isn't that big, Berwickshire nearly went Tory (SNP won by 328 seats out of circa 45000 votes cast) which would have been amusing had they had more seats in Scotland than Labour after all that Labour have been saying about Scotland.

Saving grace is that the SNP will not be wielding an amount of power out of all proportion to anything that could be considered democratic.

The fact that a party with 94.9% of the seats in Scotland will yield little or no power in the government doesn't sound awfully democratic to me.

vermin

:idea:

ddraver

I think Rick and I are the only people that voted for them in the end but this did make me giggle

With 23 consituencies still to be counted, we calculate that the Lib Dems have lost 334 deposits - or £167,000.

In fact, with all that money, they could have put 36 students through university for a year (on the current fees), or 110 under the one before they came to power.

I can understand why people wanted to punish the Lib Dems but I really don't understand why they would do that by voting for the party that wrote the policies the did nt like...

gbsahne001

UndercoverElephant wrote:

The fact that a party with 94.9% of the seats in Scotland will yield little or no power in the government doesn't sound awfully democratic to me.

The point could also be made that a party with only 5% of the country's vote shouldn't be able to dictate policy

surrey_commuter

anthdci wrote:

Surrey Commuter wrote:

Having gone through this process a number of times I can assure you that none of the above will happen....

Well put it this way, the charity I used to work for had 15 people there when I was there 5 years ago and had been expanding, doing more great work in the community and jobs. We had been providing subsidized services to other charities, (finance, IT support etc), whilst doing community development and regeneration projects, paid for through various grants.

Roll forward to today, there are 3 members of staff and look to be closing up in the next few months because there is no funding for those projects, other charities that were supported have either gone or scaled back and can't afford services.

5 years of more of the same will lead there being nothing left.

I obviously can not comment on your specific example but I am trying to warn you of the dangers of extrapolating that across the whole economy. And from there to reassure you that there is very unlikely to be civil unrest in the next 5 years.

This is going to be a scary 5 years, probably with public and NHS strikes of the scale of the miners strikes, history repeating itself.[/i][/i]

bigmat

Il Principe wrote:

jamesco wrote:

Cameron has chosen a policy of austerity which has wrecked the UKs chance of an economic recovery. That is a failure of leadership. What is the strike against Miliband? That he was photographed looking awkward eating a sandwich?

Erm We are undergoing an economic recovery, perhaps not as quickly as we'd like but the economy is on the up. Certainly most of the employees at our small business were hoping Balls & co did not get in (and the bike trade is notoriously badly paid!).

Strikes against Miliband:

1. He's not his Brother
2. He worked in the treasury team under Brown and never won the Financial Crisis argument
3. He has no Charisma (shouldn't be relevant but I'm afraid it is in 2015 Britain)
4: He's as privileged as the Tories - Primrose Hill, Oxford, Harvard, LSE, career politician (again this shouldn't really matter but it does). He's no more in touch with 'hard working families' than Dave & George are.

4. doesn't really make sense. I had schoolmates end up at Oxbridge. Juts because you are bright enough to get there without being from a top public school doesn't make you "privileged". The fact that half, probably more, of the Tory front bench went to Eton or similar is a far more relevant differentiator than what University they managed to get into. Anyway, it only becomes a negative if it looks like they have progressed to where they are by dint of background rather than ability, which isn't necessarily always the case.

The hard working families thing is a tired old cliché and one that I wish Labour had avoided, it would have been nice if Miliband could have had free reign to say what he really believes and not pander to the anti-welfare, anti-immigration brigade. Make them at least seem like a credible alternative that actually stands for something.

anthdci

Surrey Commuter wrote:

I obviously can not comment on your specific example but I am trying to warn you of the dangers of extrapolating that across the whole economy. And from there to reassure you that there is very unlikely to be civil unrest in the next 5 years.

Yea I know I can't speak for the entire country, but the majority of the funding they used were nationally advertised so that tells me they won't be an isolated case. There is an aviva funding vote going on at the moment across the country, for a relatively small amount (25k) there are 3000 projects been accepted through to the voting stage.

Civil unrest like probably an over exaggeration I admit, but the state of the workforce will be far worse under this government, like I say call centres and zero hour contracts will be the norm, especially in the north.

dhope

gbsahne wrote:

UndercoverElephant wrote:

The fact that a party with 94.9% of the seats in Scotland will yield little or no power in the government doesn't sound awfully democratic to me.

The point could also be made that a party with only 5% of the country's vote shouldn't be able to dictate policy

Or about 40% of the votes UKIP got.
Not that I favour UKIP in the slightest, but their 3.7m votes for 1 seat vs 56 seats for 1.5m votes is slightly silly.

il_principe

BigMat wrote:

Il Principe wrote:

jamesco wrote:

Cameron has chosen a policy of austerity which has wrecked the UKs chance of an economic recovery. That is a failure of leadership. What is the strike against Miliband? That he was photographed looking awkward eating a sandwich?

Erm We are undergoing an economic recovery, perhaps not as quickly as we'd like but the economy is on the up. Certainly most of the employees at our small business were hoping Balls & co did not get in (and the bike trade is notoriously badly paid!).

Strikes against Miliband:

1. He's not his Brother
2. He worked in the treasury team under Brown and never won the Financial Crisis argument
3. He has no Charisma (shouldn't be relevant but I'm afraid it is in 2015 Britain)
4: He's as privileged as the Tories - Primrose Hill, Oxford, Harvard, LSE, career politician (again this shouldn't really matter but it does). He's no more in touch with 'hard working families' than Dave & George are.

4. doesn't really make sense. I had schoolmates end up at Oxbridge. Juts because you are bright enough to get there without being from a top public school doesn't make you "privileged". The fact that half, probably more, of the Tory front bench went to Eton or similar is a far more relevant differentiator than what University they managed to get into. Anyway, it only becomes a negative if it looks like they have progressed to where they are by dint of background rather than ability, which isn't necessarily always the case.

The hard working families thing is a tired old cliché and one that I wish Labour had avoided, it would have been nice if Miliband could have had free reign to say what he really believes and not pander to the anti-welfare, anti-immigration brigade. Make them at least seem like a credible alternative that actually stands for something.

Ok, I should have written 'perceived'. It was always going to be hard for him to connect with traditional Labour voters though.

Totally agree with Immigration though. It is a total Red Herring yet all the main parties decided to make a big thing out of it. Perhaps the next Labour leader will have more courage.

The Rookie

UndercoverElephant wrote:

The Rookie wrote:

Interesting stat' with only a few more to declare, SNP with less than 1.5M votes got 56 seats, UKIP with 3.75 currently have only one.

SNP may have lots of seats, but their share of the Scottish vote isn't that big, Berwickshire nearly went Tory (SNP won by 328 seats out of circa 45000 votes cast) which would have been amusing had they had more seats in Scotland than Labour after all that Labour have been saying about Scotland.

Saving grace is that the SNP will not be wielding an amount of power out of all proportion to anything that could be considered democratic.

The fact that a party with 94.9% of the seats in Scotland will yield little or no power in the government doesn't sound awfully democratic to me.

Well what about any other region, North East (labour), North West (labour), Home Counties (Conservative), what a stupid argument that was! They have 56 seats of 650 and get the same powers as that deserves, the fact they are in one region amongst many others you could use is irrelevant.

veronese68

Il Principe wrote:

Totally agree with Immigration though. It is a total Red Herring yet all the main parties decided to make a big thing out of it. Perhaps the next Labour leader will have more courage.

Also agree with this, but a lot of people seem to think it's an issue due to the likes of UKIP and scaremongering in some parts of the press. Very disappointing.

surrey_commuter

The Rookie wrote:

UndercoverElephant wrote:

The Rookie wrote:

Interesting stat' with only a few more to declare, SNP with less than 1.5M votes got 56 seats, UKIP with 3.75 currently have only one.

SNP may have lots of seats, but their share of the Scottish vote isn't that big, Berwickshire nearly went Tory (SNP won by 328 seats out of circa 45000 votes cast) which would have been amusing had they had more seats in Scotland than Labour after all that Labour have been saying about Scotland.

Saving grace is that the SNP will not be wielding an amount of power out of all proportion to anything that could be considered democratic.

The fact that a party with 94.9% of the seats in Scotland will yield little or no power in the government doesn't sound awfully democratic to me.

Well what about any other region, North East (labour), North West (labour), Home Counties (Conservative), what a stupid argument that was! They have 56 seats of 650 and get the same powers as that deserves, the fact they are in one region amongst many others you could use is irrelevant.

no need to be inflammatory when he merely guilty of not giving some background. There has been a big movement for an Independent Scotland (they would be very upset at you comparing them to other regions) which is resisted by nearly all major parties. The fact that the SNP (in favour of independence) have nearly every seat in Scotland but no power, greatly strengthens their argument for independence. And so greatly increases the chances of another referendum.

greg66_tri_v2.0

The Rookie wrote:

No braggings in here please, but did anyone see that coming?

Never doubted the outcome for a second.

<cough cough>